Gov's plan to combat VAWG to focus on boys

[ArabellaSaurus]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c246l4mdg3jo

To be unveiled next week.

'BBC News has been told the violence against women and girls (VAWG) strategy will be built around three goals: preventing radicalisation of young men, stopping abusers, and supporting victims.

Over the coming week, the government will announce a policy blitz to tackle what government sources have called "the scourge of violence that has left the lives of women and girls shattered".

As part of the strategy, ministers will focus on prevention and tackling the root causes of radicalisation of young men in their schools, homes and online. They will work with teachers to challenge misogyny and promote healthy relationships.

Government sources say more support will be provided to parents so they can intervene early.'

Good. Haven’t we been saying for years that that’s where the issues start?

Possibly. My broad understanding is they start earlier, with a lack of good male role models and misogynist fathers.

Certainly cheaper to run a few school.initiatives than to try and tackle deeply rooted social problems, though.

I imagine this is a response to the 'Adolescence' documentary Starmer was so impressed by.

Just to clarify Adolescence was a drama rather than a documentary.

Yes, sorry, that was sarcasm.

Maybe school leaders could be encouraged to look at themselves first. The practice of using well behaved girls to moderate the behaviour of disruptive boys is still being used in our school and obviously vast numbers of schools are prioritising some boys who want to use girls spaces.

I think also it will be hard, in the extremely limited time they have, for schools to pitch this in such a way that doesn’t make the boys feel like they are being blamed for everything and alienate them further. They are a product of society - including parenting and social media. As @arabella says, it starts earlier than school.

From everything dcs have said about their school’s assemblies on this sort of thing, it’s cringeworthy and unproductive so I hope they take a different approach.

Apologies 😂

boys feel like they are being blamed for everything and alienate them further.

Completely agree with this. Our MAT had started on its own a similar programme.

We have stopped because the content is doing exactly the opposite. Most notably, the boys who were not part of the problem came out feeling less engaged and less likely to want to stand up for women. Making boys feel at fault creates more problems than it solves.

But again, schools can not fix everything.

Perhaps the adults could also take a look at their own policies and practices which de-prioritise female safety, comfort, dignity and privacy in favour of male feelings and desires.

Couldn't agree more. My daughter was used as the role model, forced to sit next to disruptive bullies in the hope that her good behaviour would rub off on them. A couple of years later and she can barely attend school due to anxiety from constant mean comments, boys invading her personal space, pushing, shoving and throwing things at her. I honestly think if they had found a quiet space for her away from the disruptive kids then she wouldn't have reached autistic burnout.

This has taught her that girls exist to serve the needs of boys. She is learning to minimise her own needs to keep them happy, a dangerous lesson!

That’s awful, @GoodBrew your poor daughter.

Yes, I agree. Children enjoy being preached at about as much as adults do, and from what I hear, boys are already subject to 'scolding' and many feel that they are unfairly treated because of their sex.

I have a feeling that this is doing something for the sake of doing something, something seen as a quick and easy solution. But it needs careful thought, or they risk worsening matters rather than helping.

Yes, indeed.

Any plan to release those guidelines yet? Can girls be assured they have single sex spaces in schools, away from boys?

Do the boys get to opt out of being lectured for being sexist if they put on a skirt and declare they are gender incongruent?

Devastating. I'm so sorry.

Whatever they do they need to find some young role models to combat twats like Andrew Tate. Danny Dyer did a good documentary on channel four looking at attitudes of mainly younger men and boys, and we've had Idris Elba having a go at knife crime. But let's face it they're too old for younger men and older lads to identify with.

Is there actually any evidence that boys 'feel they are blamed for everything and that this alienates them further'? Because I see this said, but I'm not sure in what it's actually based.
As far as I can see, there has been no societal swing whereby male people are now encouraged to see themselves as lesser or worse than female people.
There has been no sudden surge of the prioritisation of the 'good' female people over the 'bad' male people.
Women and girls continue to be held to higher standards of behaviour and subject to greater disapproval when they step out of line in all areas of society.
All I see is a long overdue recognition that the behaviour of some male people is causing great harm to female people and other male people. Which is typically delivered with great care for the feelings of the 'good' male people on pain of instant NAMALT should we forget the 'some'.
Men's rights groups and misogynists are working hard to tell us that when we are alienating men and boys, because they don't want us to talk about harmful patterns of behaviour shown by male people.
But I've yet to see evidence that decent men and boys are unable to differentiate between conversations about behaviour they don't show and tar themselves with the same brush as those that do, thus living down to expectations.
Obviously we don't want to alienate boys. But I'm not sure how we can have an honest and useful conversation about VAWG without being explicit that this is something that some male people do to female people, with the focus on ensuring they don't become one of those male people.

It will be the HOW of the teaching of boys that is important. I do think this is a good idea but the fact that boys feel blamed by what they are being told means the teaching is wrong. What we really need is specialist trainers to go into schools to work with young people. A teacher standing up and treating all boys the same won't cut it.

I work with training deliverers and facilitators and the most effective work is done where it is a conversation and where the learners have time to come to the conclusions for themselves. I don't really see how schools have the time to do this without outside support. Teachers are amazing at what they do, asking them do take this on as well is a huge additional load if it is to be done properly.

Agreed @5128gap- and men’s rights groups have already shown they will leverage ‘this is what some men do and it’s wrong’ Into ‘this is what WAG think all men do and they’re wrong’. It’s a sort of reverse whataboutery, to avoid having to confront the fact that although NAMALT, an awful lot of men are at the soft edge of the spectrum.

Personally I felt that Adolescence completely missed the mark on why boys are behaving the ways they are. There are either roots in trauma or differences in psychology/brain operation/ways of thinking and being that are still often further impacted by trauma at the root of these issues.

It is largely down to lack of positive connection and connection happens at a much deeper emotional level than many parents ever experienced themselves so they don’t even realise their children are missing out.

In attachment theory they speak about different forms of early attachment. I would say very strong healthy attachment is actually pretty rare and modern parenting which has practices that run counter to healthy attachment are part of the problem. Not that there has probably ever been a time in history that there were not significant issues with DV.

Boys feel and particularly react to this lack of attachment and connection in different ways to girls. They largely externalise their feelings and they manifest as behaviours whereas girls often internalise it.

There is no way getting lectured in school and made to feel shameful for being a boy is going to repair these early disconnections.

@5128gap - I think there are a lot of false and exaggerated narratives on social media rather than necessarily reality.

We need to be careful with this, and it's good that others can see that it can end up alienating this boys are weren't that way inclined.

Every time I see this measures about lessons etc being brought in, I always think "well you're not targeting the main culprits" because more often than not those boys have already been suspended (or bunking off) and so won't be around to attend.

Everyone's favourite villain/scapegoat Andrew Tate has been able to tap into this resentment and make a career out of it. And then stuff like trans (particularly transmaxxing) has been boosted by this resentment too, with a lot of boys trying to opt out of masculinity and gain protected status.

Actually David Gandy said it well recently, in that we don't talk about positive masculinity, only toxic masculinity. It's the carrot and stick approach.

It's similar to the tubes in London with Khan's advertising telling men to stop committing sexual crimes (like staring etc) and the Maaate campaign, but then not actually doing anything to actually stop it and helping people report it (like no one being on the end contact phones or lack of staff).

Agreed.
I'm always amazed at the reaction that this is somehow unfair to boys, making them feel bad about themselves, etc etc.

In particular, if you say 'toxic masculinity is a bad thing' you get attacked for demonising boys - as if toxic masculinity is good for them! It's odd to see people arguing for the right for boys to be subjected to stereotypes of masculinity that are dangerous for women - but are also damaging for boys.

On another thread I was accused of demonising boys for saying that toxic masculinity is bad for boys, although I even posted a link to the White Ribbon UK men's organisation:
'White Ribbon UK is the leading charity in England and Wales engaging men and boys to prevent violence against women and girls.'

Knife crime, drugs, TWOCing - it's uncontroversial to try to stop boys getting drawn into those, but some people seem to think that trying to stop boys getting drawn into misogyny and violence against women is demonising and alienating them, when in fact it is empowering boys to do something to - as White Ribbon say on their website:
to create a world where everyone is safe, equal and respected.

Yes.

If the theory is that boys are half formed and still pliable and able to learn better ways of relating, then this must be taken into account when considering the messaging and methods.

Censorious 'calling out' or judgement risks creating defensive responses and worsening the problems purported to be tackled by the lessons.

I think plain, bald stats are perhaps enlightening. Then again, those stats are potentially disturbing for any child.

Lessons would have to also include listening, which would entail potential trauma disclosures.

Encouraging questioning of assumptions might be helpful. But again, this is very difficult with enormous class sizes, teachers already struggling with too much workload, conflicting directives.

Are we asking teachers to solve problems they are in no way trained, prepared, or paid to do?

It's not so much that it's unfair, more that it is highly unlikely to work.

The 'scolding and castigating' method of teaching just isn't very effective.

The root causes of misogyny are very deep. Trauma and generational patterns of abuse are often involved. A ticking off by a teacher for a boy who may have grown up witnessing abuse/DV at home isn't going to achieve anything other than add to his sense that the world is a hostile place where he must constantly lash out and 'man up', and any frustration he may feel can be discharged at a weaker target, which is to say, often a woman or girl.

Just as a boy who is NOT sexist or violent is unlikely to be swayed into VAWG by watching an occasional Andrew Tate video, a boy who has had years of 'learn by example' of men mistreating women is unlikely to be cured of those views with a half dozen RSHE lessons.